Vyebrows

I admit the car door idea is a stretch i was just remembering fallout but the idea of needing to pushing into and check a building full of zombies with a few friends would otherwise consists of agroing and circle strafing single zombies as you kite them out which feels cheap and not very exciting compared to moving as a unit and having a shield bearer hold the horde at a staircase which your buddies check the nearby rooms upstairs, the shields durability lowering with each Zed attack. With the Zed/player count only going up the scarcity of firearms will probably make melee combat kind of needs more depth to it also. I'd assume that it'd slightly lower bullet damage and absorb only a few melee hits but the player can't attack while blocking making it a more team-oriented item. You think people holding a doorway in a building would be a bad idea?

The idea for shields to be in a zombie survival scenario makes way too much sense to not be one of the first thoughts for the developers i'm surprised that there has been no mention of such items yet. Not sure if you mean for there to be shield mode and weapon mode as separate stances (pressing spacebar when melee weapon is out to toggle) or passive with no downsides?

I have read nothing of shields for DayZ yet and i really think it'd only benefit it. Society has devolved to hunters and gatherers and half the combat is melee so it makes sense that human ingenuity would allow for adapting car doors/signposts signs/wooden planks/ boards into defensive items. Melee weapons have the 'spacebar mode' where the weapon cannot be used and is raised in front of them, this mode would be perfect to toggle on/off 'shield mode' instead. As far as quality goes wooden would be lowest up to scrap metal shield and military grade riot shields as highest. One thing that i found really unimmersive about a zombie apocalypse is the lack of protection the survivors seem to take. Let me know what you think.